Heroes of Our Economy
A social economy approach therefore asks why people are engaged in specific enterprises. Are they simply out to make the most money they can? Many people do. Or…
Tag: government
Justin Richland on his book, Cooperation without Submission
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo34191322.html Interview by Hannah McElGunn Hannah McElGunn: Cooperation Without Submission brings together cases drawn from a wide…
Acts of Occlusion
Occlusion is a term that describes a technique of erasure. Here, I show how occlusion works specifically in International Development discourses to set the terms of morality, dominance,…
Reading Lists: Residential Schools and Canadian Colonialism
Content warning: this article covers topics of colonialism and genocide in Canada. In early June of 2021 news reports emerged about the remains of Indigenous children buried in…
A moral politics of blame
Modern municipal waste disposal is not limited to removal of garbage, but often involves a strategic churning out of unwanted people, and extreme events such as dump fires…
Waste and Recycling in Cold War Eastern Europe
This short study analyzes the professional and political discussions of post-industrial and post-consumer waste, discards and recycling in state-socialist Hungary and connects these discourses with th…
Nigeria’s COVID-19 waste management policy should include the informal sector
Though Nigeria approved a national solid waste management policy earlier this year, it does not provide a plan to include the large informal sector. An inclusive policy is…
It’s Time to Study Reparations
The moment has come for a government commission on slavery and its present-day impacts; the moment has come for profound change. Last year on Juneteenth—an annual holiday commemorating…
The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the commons
A Twitter essay by Matto Mildenberger (@mmildenberger) Something I’ve been meaning to say about The Tragedy of the Commons. Bear with me for a small thread on…
Yes, Genocide (a primer on the term) #MMIWG
For Raphael Lemkin, who invented the term, genocide was the effort to destroy a group as a group. #MMIWG
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste: Emily Simmonds on Canada as a nuclear nation & ongoing colonialism through uranium mining.
Waste colonialism
Waste colonialism refers to how waste and pollution are part of the domination of one group in their homeland by another group. The concept has been gaining traction…
Against Risk Perception: The Deficit Model and Public Understandings of Risk
The deficit model frames public controversies about contamination as a lack of scientific understanding or trust in government institutions. People are seen as deficient in knowledge about an…
Ep. #22 Just the way things are: Steve Woolgar talks mundane governance, & the rules that run our lives
“Although this stuff is very ordinary, very day-to-day, very unremarkable… it’s actually quite dangerous, too.” Steve Woolgar, emeritus professor at the Saïd School of Business…
These chemicals are bad for babies and whales: Why haven’t they been banned in Canada?
Canadian regulators are all over the map with respect to flame retardants. On PBDEs, Canada infamously refused to take meaningful regulatory action. The government found most PBDEs to…
Moving the Circular Economy Beyond Alchemy
This review of a special issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology titled, “Exploring the Circular Economy” is a virtual tour of circular economy definitions and current directions.…
CFP: Pervasive Powers: Corporate Authority in the Shaping of Public Policy (Paris)
This conference is based on the idea that, not only has this power varied among industries, countries and different periods, but also that the way in which it…
Pollution is Colonialism
Colonialism in Canada is an ongoing structure whereby settler society and government assert sovereignty over lands already occupied by Indigenous peoples.
Cleaning up toxic sites shouldn’t clear out the neighbors
Notions of “sustainability” and “urban greening” ought to include values of justice and equity. Otherwise, important projects like the Blue Greenway will build sustainable waterfronts for the urban…
Recycling Reconsidered: A must-read text for discard studies
If I could only recommend one text in discard studies, it would be Recycling Reconsidered by Samantha MacBride (2011, MIT Press).
Call for participation: Enacting Environmental Data Justice
Held on Tuesday, August 29, this event will explore possibilities for data justice through a framework of environmental justice.
Kendzior: In Defense of Complaining
This was meant to be a book review. Instead, it’s an essay about the power—and importance—of complaining.[1] The book under consideration here is Sarah Kendzior’s The View from…
We need to think about redefining citizenship in the Anthropocene
The concept of citizenship originally described inhabitants of (probably walled) towns. Some insistence on specificity of place certainly remains, although the concept today generally refers to nation…
The case for a people’s smart sanctions campaign against Trump’s America
The forces arrayed against Donald Trump’s presidency in the US could soon encompass most of the world once Trump’s climate change threats meet resistance.